George Bauk on Northern Minerals’ DFS and being the next dysprosium supplier

March 2, 2015 — In a special InvestorIntel interview, the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Tracy Weslosky interviews George Bauk, Managing Director and CEO for Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU) on the Browns Range Definitive Feasibility Study that has just been released, which positions Northern Minerals’ as the next dysprosium supplier.

Tracy Weslosky: I have to say by saying congratulations. The news you are literally putting out as we speak for your definitive feasibility study is out and on time.

George Bauk: Yeah, absolutely Tracy. We said we were going to get it out at the end of February so it’s out. More importantly it’s got some improved and other factors in the announcement.

Tracy Weslosky: I just want to back you up because I’m still savoring the fact that it’s on time. You know, the heavy rare earth march to market in production has been a real battle over the years and you’re on track. Can you give us the highlights of your feasibility study?

George Bauk: Sure. Look the NPV has gone up so we’ve seen an increase by about $100 million dollars to over $550 million dollar NPV. Our cash costs have come down, which it’s come from $40.00 to $37.60. We’ve seen the capex move slightly up about $15 million dollars, but that’s a result of a couple of things. One is the mining, the timing of our portal coming in means that this $10 million dollars moved from sustaining to preproduction capital. We’ve also enhanced the hydrometallurgy plant with an increase of 5% to recoveries from 88 to 93.

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Tracy Weslosky: For anyone in the InvestorIntel audience that’s not familiar with Northern Minerals, this is a story that all our writers love and recommend. Of course, you’ve got a xenotime — you’re one of the best heavy rare earth projects in the world. Wasn’t it just last week I think you announced another $49.5M, nearly 50M raise?

George Bauk: That’s right. If you go back in time, the last 5 years we’ve raised $75 million dollars and invested into the project. Now we’re at the next stage of getting the serious backers into to take us into production, which with a capex in Aussie dollars of about $330 million dollars, now is the time to really position ourselves with the investors that are going to now lead progress into production. We’ve been very fortunate enough to join forces with…to access the rest of this interview, click here

Disclaimer: Northern Minerals is an advertorial member of InvestorIntel.

An accomplished entrepreneur Tracy Weslosky is the CEO for InvestorIntel Corp., a company that publishes InvestorIntel.com, a trusted source of online market information for investors ... <Read more about Tracy Weslosky>

Comments

After approval of the new deal with Jilin Jien Nickel Industry the Chinese will have 63 % (sheet 13 of the presentation) of the shares. Question is if NTU will be allowed to deliver the ROW. If not, the Dy price will be tempered by the chinese competitors I fear, as will be the SP.

I think there are some obvious challenges/topics that should have been brought up in this interview:

1) It seems highly speculative that Northern will beat either Ucore or Rare Element in the States to production. Seems they are running about neck and neck in the race to the finish line;

2) Nothing on the recently announced 10 month delay mentioned–which has brought a drop in sp. And to attribute that to the wet season is just plain silly. Every 4th grader in Australia knows that the site is in the Monsoon Belt of northern Australia, which is characterized by high seasonal rainfall. Anyone operating in the outdoors plans for this FROM THE START. That a company planning outdoor construction during that season fails to plan for that in the earliest stages of planning suggests a gross failure to consider common knowledge of regional geography.

3) With the Chinese controlling a majority of the shares, how can this really be considered an Australian mine other than in terms pure locational geography? Why would the national government allow this? Is Australia merely a Third World like natural resource/commodities base for the Chinese? And what does this literally selling out to the Chinese say about them continuing to have a stranglehold on global HREE/CREO production?. The Chinese are very clever and long-term in their planning when it comes to global resources, while Western nations appear to be just plain stupid and short-sighted.

Well said walbangerharvey. This effectively become a vertically integrated China source with China domestic prices. The prices are optimistic at best and misleading at worst. Hopefully shareholders will see through this b-grade effort.